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"You all are doing a great job. Based on the effort you’re currently showing, I believe any of you could easily get a nursing certificate in the future."
Liu Banxia started broadcasting again. This ti he was a bit better equipped; at least he had a gaphone.
"The public area has now been fully disinfected. Next, everyone please place the linens you’ve gathered by the door. Our dical staff will collect them."
"Then, our nurses will enter each patient’s room to take samples. Our ergency center laboratory and inpatient departnt laboratory have suspended all non-ergency tests to facilitate our culturing process."
"To be honest, I don’t think this is anything serious. As long as everyone cooperates well, our related work will be done quickly. We can test many samples at once, and we will prioritize all of you without delaying anyone’s afternoon work."
"If anyone needs anything, you can have lunch in our hospital cafeteria. Of course, it’s not free. Don’t go there and claim that Dr. Liu said you could eat for free. I can’t afford to cover everyone’s als."
At his words, everyone laughed.
After this period of de-escalation, everyone’s emotions had stabilized considerably. Moreover, they realized they currently had no symptoms, which explained why their initial extre nervousness had largely dissipated.
"Alright, that’s all. Let’s all put in a bit more effort and get this done," Liu Banxia said again, finally lowering the gaphone.
It’s often the case that no matter how complex or tedious a task, as long as you don’t panic and follow the procedures, it’s manageable. The disinfection of the entire pediatrics departnt and the hospital’s public areas was a major undertaking. If the parents had been chaotically interfering, the job would have been much harder.
Now, not only were these parents not causing trouble, but they were also helping with the disinfection work inside the patient rooms. This interplay of factors saved a significant amount of ti.
The mood of the dical staff remaining in the pediatrics departnt was also less tense. With their minds at ease, the work progressed more efficiently.
Although the hospital had certain hygiene standards, it wasn’t as if they perford a full-scale disinfection every few days.
Chen Hongyang walked over to Liu Banxia and gave him a thumbs up. "This is the most cooperative I’ve ever seen. Amazing."
"Don’t flatter . It’s actually all thanks to the parents’ discipline and the composed performance of our pediatric dical staff," Liu Banxia said with a smile.
"If we had panicked, the parents would have panicked even more. Things are looking pretty good so far, but we still need to wait here for the test results. When the ti cos, let our nurses reassure them again."
Chen Hongyang nodded; this was indeed necessary.
Timing is crucial for everything, Chen Hongyang thought. Liu Banxia, with his talking and shouting, had managed to distract them. Now they were just waiting in their rooms. If they started browsing their phones or chatting amongst themselves, they would undoubtedly grow more anxious.
The cald emotions could flare up again, and that really wouldn’t be ideal.
Work was progressing in an orderly manner, and Liu Banxia’s mood was gradually calming down as well.
"Caraman, have you shot enough? It’s pretty hot wearing these protective suits. Once you’re done, go outside and cool off," Liu Banxia said.
"It’s alright, but it’s really stuffy in here," the caraman replied.
"That’s why I’m suggesting it. I can provide you with plenty of material for this coverage. At the very least, with so many samples needing to be tested now, you should go film at the laboratory," Liu Banxia said.
"Oh, right, thank you, Dr. Liu. I think I’ve shot enough here," the caraman said quickly.
Actually, he felt that he hadn’t captured enough footage in the pediatric ward. This was the first ti in his interviewing career that he had seen children’s parents actively helping with disinfection work.
And considering this was an infectious disease outbreak, he found it sowhat incredible that these people could calm down after the initial panic.
But what Dr. Liu had just said was also right. The laboratory was probably very busy right now, making it a good continuous point for coverage that could be edited together.
"Finally, I can relax a bit. With him around, I didn’t dare speak carelessly. So, did he get footage of all of you just now?" Liu Banxia asked Chen Hongyang.
Chen Hongyang smiled and nodded. "Pretty much. But who actually makes it onto the program will ultimately depend on the production team. Thank you so much; I didn’t expect us to have such an opportunity."
"Oh, don’t ntion it. This is a reward for everyone’s hard work. I just got an update: the children’s conditions are generally stable, with no significant temperature spikes. There shouldn’t be any major issues," Liu Banxia said.
"We still need to see the culture results and then observe for another day. However, our significant efforts and all the work we’ve done have effectively helped to contain it," Chen Hongyang said.
"Has any information co back from outside yet? Have the contacts who sought treatnt yesterday and their kindergarten all been notified?"
Liu Banxia nodded. "Yes, it’s all been taken care of. The people from the CDC have arrived. It’ll be good for them to handle the concluding tasks."
"However, you’ll probably be quite busy this afternoon, since you couldn’t get any other work done this morning. Given the circumstances, should afternoon appointnts be suspended as well?"
Hearing his words, Chen Hongyang thought for a mont, then nodded. "That would be the more prudent approach. It would also help to stabilize the parents’ emotions."
"You’ll see, many parents of hospitalized children will request discharge, and we’ll have to grant it. Fortunately, none of the illnesses are too severe; most are just cases of the flu. Having you tied up here all morning hasn’t delayed your other work, has it?"
"Oh, right! There was sothing else. With all this commotion, I completely forgot." Liu Banxia slapped his forehead and quickly pulled out his phone.
There was that encephalitis case from yesterday. They did a lumbar puncture for cerebrospinal fluid in the middle of the night; so results should be available by now.
"President Liu, are you done with things on your end?" Zhang Ping asked over the phone.
"I still have to wait a bit. I need to get everything sorted here before I can leave. Have the cerebrospinal fluid test results co out yet?" Liu Banxia asked.
"Yes, they have. The possibility of a teratoma has been ruled out. The viral and bacterial cultures haven’t co back positive yet, but the immunoglobulin count has increased."
"And the complete blood count and blood biochemistry results we conducted are all normal, just a slightly high white blood cell count. It’s becoming difficult to determine the next steps; we’ve hit a snag."
"What about the child’s symptoms? Still hallucinations? Are there any new symptoms?" Liu Banxia continued to ask.
"No other symptoms have manifested so far. That’s why, after the results ca in, we didn’t call you, knowing you were busy," Zhang Ping said.
"The child’s glucose levels are also normal, so I plan to also rule out vasculitis, rheumatic diseases, neurosyphilis, tumors, and other related types of diseases."
"That’s all we can do for now then. We’ll have to hope for other symptoms to manifest, or for a virus or bacterium to test positive. This is indeed quite troubleso," Liu Banxia said wearily.
An elevated immunoglobulin level alone ans we have to start slowly ruling out related diseases. Even though it currently looks like encephalitis, we can’t exclude other possibilities yet.
"Is it difficult to handle?" Chen Hongyang asked Liu Banxia after he hung up the phone.
"Yes, the assessnt is encephalitis, but nothing has tested positive yet, and for now, we don’t have any other leads," Liu Banxia said.
"The child’s main symptom is night terrors. We estimate there’s also so degree of ataxia, though it’s not pronounced. Since it manifested after the child hit their head, our hypothesis is that a complication led to ataxia, which affected the child’s coordination and caused them to hit their head."
"The difficulty lies in the fact that the child has been very healthy recently. This leads us to believe we can rule out so forms of acute encephalitis. But if it’s chronic encephalitis, tracing it back isn’t so easy."
"No relevant dical history? That shouldn’t be the case," Chen Hongyang asked with a frown.
"The situation is a bit complex. The child’s parents are divorced. The father used to be a long-haul driver, but after he remarried, the child should have been fine. The stepmother is very caring towards the child," Liu Banxia explained.
"Well... that does make tracing things back a bit problematic. You ponder it; I’m off to check on everyone," Chen Hongyang said.
He couldn’t help much with this particular case. Faced with such a situation, he too would resort to the sa process of elimination based on deductions like Zhang Ping had just outlined.
Diagnosing illnesses was often like this. It was rare to pinpoint a patient’s exact condition at a glance. More often than not, the thod of elimination was employed.
You just keep eliminating possibilities one by one. Eventually, you might land on a definitive diagnosis after ruling out a certain number of them.
At that mont, Liu Banxia’s phone rang again. Seeing it was Director Zhao Tieping from the lab, he quickly answered, "Director Zhao, are any of the cultures positive?"
"No, all the results that have co out so far are negative," Zhao Tieping replied.
"I have to thank you. The TV crew ca over for an interview just now. They asked a lot of detailed questions, which gave us a chance to give a comprehensive introduction to the laboratory."
"You don’t need to thank , Director Zhao. They were here to do a feature on our ergency center, and the lab is part of the ergency center, after all," Liu Banxia said with a smile.
"It’s just that today was quite eventful with this incident. But you all are definitely in for a lot of work today with so many samples. After these, you’ll still have to process the tests for the other pending samples."
"That’s nothing, really. In our line of work, hardship and fatigue are things we’re all well aware of. I’ll let you get back to it then; you must be busy," Zhao Tieping said before hanging up.
Liu Banxia didn’t dwell on it much. As he’d ntioned, the crew was primarily there to report on the ergency center. Therefore, the benefits of the coverage should be shared, and it ought to be comprehensive.
Hog all the credit just for his bid for deputy director? He couldn’t do sothing like that.
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